Discovery Channel's "Dangerous Flights"

[Oscar Avalle]

Entertaining, don't take it serious... Just like Ice Pilots and Alaska Flyers... but I like Ice Pilots better.

[orionflt]

I haven't seen it yet, but I know Pete from episode 8. Going to have to watch it one of these days, but he has been taking a lot of ribbing about it.

[FlyDave]

I especially like the Airplane Repo episode where the loudmouth cowboy (a real jackass that would get pummeled repeatedly by numerous entities in "Real Life") re-steals a cabin class twin:

• In mountainous terrain
• At night
• Without working nav or landing lights
• Without a GPS (530 had been removed and no handheld; Hmmm, really?)
• Without sectionals
• Without Radios that work

 

And proceeds to an airport and finally "finds" a handheld radio to get a clearance to land.

If anyone is THAT STUPID they deserve to fly in mountainous terrain at night without a GPS/NAV/charts and without lights or radios.

By the end of that episode I couldn't take any more of that guy and had to turn it off.

 

FLY SAFE (I know you're better than that guy!!!)

 

Dave

[jlunseth]

Well, I watched a couple of episodes of the repo show and the Court Order thing was explained.  If you have a Court Order from a Court in the US, it does not do you any good in Malta, and if the company is in France and is or is about to undergo a French bankruptcy, the US Court Order is not worth spit.  Most of the time, if the aircraft is in the US, they would not need a court order to do a repossession as long as it can be done without a breach of the peace.

[Southron]

While I enjoy "Dangerous Flights" I realize that 98% of the "drama" is manufactured for the non-flying audience. I used to do a lot of flying all over the Midwest and Southeast in a Beechcraft Sierra and for some reason, my flights were rather low when it came to the "drama" factor.

 

Of course, I did silly things like plan my route out in advance, make sure that I had enough fuel on board for my destination plus 45 minutes, avoided bad weather, etc.,

 

I still go with the theory that if the pilot does his job, 99.98% of flying is just downright boring-which is the way I like for it to be. I am kinda a "no drama" pilot if I can help it!!!!

 

But I will be looking at Season 2 of Dangerous Flights0I just take the "situations" they find themsleves in with a "Grain if Salt."

[flyboy0681]

Another season of Aircraft Repo has reared its ugly head. This weeks episode finds drama above the Atlantic, as the Repo Man "steals" an aging Piper Arrow which the narrator described as a $150k aircraft. But wait, there's more...

 

The scene is nighttime at a major airport in the Bahamas, either Nassau or Grand Bahama. Judging by the drama that ensues, the pilot doesn't file an eAPIS and is portrayed as flying VFR over the water at 1,000 feet. Never mind that in the Bahamas all nighttime flights have to be made under IFR. So there he is, over the water when the panel goes totally dark, total electrical failure at night, above the Atlantic at 1,000 feet. The outside mounted GoPro records this event, but oddly enough the landing light is still illuminated. 

 

Fast forward to arrival in the US, where he picks at random the airport that he will land at. Never mind that he has to head to an airport of entry, he chooses a small field somewhere along the Florida coast. The runway lights are turned on by the plane that lands ahead of him but by the time he makes his approach, they switch off and since he has no radio's, he can't turn them back on. The landing is recorded by the GoPro, with the landing light and strobes on (do they have a separate source of power one has to wonder). After landing he is met by local police, guns drawn, which may not be staged as I too would assume this plane was running drugs and trying to fly under the radar.

 

Join us again next week folks for another action packed adventure on Aircraft Repooooo.

[1964-M20E]

Keep in mind the show is designed for the non-aviation person who does not have a clue.   

[flyboy0681]

Keep in mind the show is designed for the non-aviation person who does not have a clue.   

 

I know, but it's just so frustrating. The following article appeared in the New York Times a couple of years ago, written by a real repo man. His story is entirely different than what is portrayed on the show.

 

After zeroing in on his target, Ken Hill said, he arrives at the airport and tries to reach the owner. About one in four defaulters agree to make payments current, he said. In such instances, Mr. Hill leaves empty-handed and charges his clients only out-of-pocket expenses for his efforts.

 

Mr. Hill said he must have free and clear access before he can start the repossession. That can take days and may even require a court order if the owner or the service center does not cooperate.

 

If he is granted access or if the plane is parked outdoors, Mr. Hill first secures his cable lock around the propeller or the landing gear on a jet. (He usually carries one lock at a time, buying replacements along the way.) Then he tapes a notice of repossession from the lender to the door of the plane. In his fanny pack, he can usually find a master key that opens the plane door. If not, he calls a local locksmith.

 

Once inside, he will take photographs and do an inventory of the plane’s equipment for the bank. If any communications devices are missing, that is where his portable radio and GPS device come in handy — so that he can safely fly the plane. No hot-wiring is involved, he said, and usually the only key required is the one to open the door.

 

Mr. Hill’s goal is to move the plane out of state, often to a service center in Greenwood, Miss., that he has used for years, to avert any problems with local authorities and associated costs. “You try to avoid getting it into the legal system,” he said.

 

But he will not fly off, he said, until the plane has a clean bill of health from a mechanic, a process that is more complicated if the logbooks cannot be found. Mr. Hill emphasized that he did not jump into planes after dark and fly away. “I’ll do a thorough preflight inspection and make sure there are blue skies all the way,” he said. “I won’t expose the bank to more problems than it has.”

 

Once the plane is airworthy and secure, Mr. Hill will have it appraised, check with the F.A.A. for outstanding liens and sell it for the bank. On any given day in recent weeks, he has had at least a dozen planes advertised on his Web site.

 

Mr. Hill would not disclose any financial details, but he said repossession is not a lucrative career. (He did, however, say it is more interesting than his a somewhat similar sideline career as a registered bounty hunter in California.) Nor does his day always run smoothly.

 

“I once had a lady chase me through a hangar with a yard rake,” he said. “I just tell them, ‘I have a job to do.’ If they did what they were supposed to do, I wouldn’t be here.”

[wishboneash]

The only TV/youtube videos IMHO worth watching are Air Disasters and others which recreate actual accidents. At least one can learn from those.

[Txbyker]

I have a hard time following Aircraft Repo.  Somehow these guys jump on the plane as the owner is chasing them and misses them by a few feet.  But when they take off someone had time to mount 4 or 5 Go-Pros on the wing, tail, underneath, inside, etc.  Then in flight a chase plane is filming them fly by. Then they most often have to put down on an unscheduled strip due to mechanical issues.  Amazingly there is a camera man filming them landing at this unplanned location.  So realistic.

 

Russ

[DonMuncy]

You guys are making me glad I don't watch that show.

[Wakeup]

I confess...I like Airplane Repo. Please don't think any less of me

[flyboy0681]

I confess...I like Airplane Repo. Please don't think any less of me

 

Same here. At the end of the day, it's fun to see how they stretch things.

 

One thing I didn't mention in my earlier post was another Repo they were doing of a Piper Seneca which was parked beside a house in an airpark in Texas. The repo man needed the log books and actually broke into the guys house and searched for them, even going through drawers . If it wasn't staged then I imagine there was a heap of trouble in store for the guy at a later time, but it wan't mentioned on the show.

[ryoder]

I watched a little bit of airplane repo last night and man did I have suspend my disbelief. One guy was actually shot at while he was taxiing away on a floatplane. He also just barely fueled the airplane with some old AvGas sitting in a barrel while the owner was creeping up on him. The only redeeming quality is that I get to look at real airplanes so I'll probably watch it anyway.

[flyboy0681]

My favorite episode from this year is the one where Kevin Lacy (any relation to Clay?) attempts to jack a plane as the "owner" comes running after him. They eventually start throwing punches around and Kevin get pretty bloodied up as the police arrive. After all that, what do you think happens? Lacy shows the cops the paperwork for the repossession, to which they give him a nod and wish him a good flight. Why didn't he just show up at the police department from the beginning, present the court order and bank papers and tell them that he was going to take the plane? I guess because it wouldn't make for such high drama.

[cliffy]

flyboy  +1     I just can't watch it.

[cliffy]

Forgot to add-

 

I repo'd a 727 once without all the drama. 

[flyboy0681]

As a follow up to this thread, this months Flying Magazine has a full length story about "real" aircraft repossessions and it bears little resemblance to the Discovery Channel's show, "Aircraft Repo". Real aircraft repo man Nick Popovich is interviewed and he said none of the antics portrayed on the show are real and that when goes on a job he's under orders from the banks that he does the work for to stay well withing the law so that they don't get sued. This includes not jumping over airport fences and especially not breaking into hangars.

 

The article also goes on to say that when he arrives to repossess an aircraft, his first stop is to the local police station to inform them of why he is there, when he will be doing his job and to show them the court order. He also makes sure that he receives a police report.

 

Slightly different than what we see on the TV show.